Squatters and migrants in Madrid: Interactions, contexts and cycles

Miguel Angel Martínez López

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

I hold a research interest in squatting dating back
to the late 1990s. Recently, I have been exploring the relationship between
squatting and migration. The illegal occupation of vacant buildings is usually
a hidden way to access shelter. Migrants also tend to remain invisible or are
pushed into marginality when their legal status does not enable them to enjoy
citizenship rights. These two sets of social phenomena may intersect, making
the outcomes even less easy to observe. The research I present in Urban Studies
aims at bringing to light some of the complexities of the intersection between
squatting and migration.

First, I question the conventional distinction
between the political and social dimensions of squatting. It is widely assumed
that most migrants who squat do so primarily because of deprivation. Similarly,
squatting is usually portrayed as a social action to satisfy urgent housing
needs without paying attention to the political claims and dynamics around this
practice. However, some migrants become very active in political squats, which
function as social centres where cultural and political activities are
performed. This observation requires that we challenge conventional views of migrants
and squatters and explore the issue beyond the standpoint of political
solidarity. Second, I explore the mechanisms, organisations or events that
could help illuminate the interactions between squatters and migrants. In
particular, I examine the protest cycles of urban movements in Madrid. I deploy
a qualitative methodology given the slippery, complex and stealth nature of the
phenomena under examination.

In doing so, I distinguish four major forms of
interaction. As anticipated, I show that deprivation-based squatting is not
necessarily the prevailing type among migrants. I identify forms of squatting that are more
appropriately defined according to the following qualities:

1) Autonomy – when immigrants squat alone without
the initial help of native political squatters, although some cooperation may
occur later on.

2) Solidarity – either migrants or political
squatters launch protest campaigns, actions or events in which the issues of
migration, citizen rights, police controls, etc. are the main claims at play. Both
groups cooperate with each other and the squatted spaces are used to develop
these ties.

3) Engagement – migrants participate in the
activities and the self-management of political squats, usually initiated and
run by natives, with different degrees of involvement and in different numbers
in each case.

4) Empowerment – when political squatters help
migrants to squat and they both may occasionally cohabit in the occupied
building.

I argue that these variations occur due to specific
drivers within urban protest cycles -in particular, the waves of protest surrounding
global justice issues (since 2000) and the 15M/Indignados (since 2011), which
served to facilitate cooperation between squatters and migrants. More
specifically, two key social organisations (ODS-Office of Social Rights and PAH-Anti-Eviction
Platform of People Affected by Mortgages) and their practices triggered the
interactions between migrants and squatters. I also show, despite the over-representation
of Latin American migrants, that the political squatting movement in Madrid has
consistently incorporated groups of migrants and their struggles in accordance
with anti-fascist, anti-racist and anti-xenophobic claims and practices.

The striking conclusion is that beyond expressions
of ideological solidarity or the tendency towards hidden deprivation-based squatting,
different forms of interaction have prevailed in different historical periods.
In particular, ‘engagement’ has increasingly occurred along with the rising
numbers of migrants in Spain, but also given the crucial influence of some initiatives
such as the ODS. Moreover, ‘empowerment’ based interactions were boosted by the
15M movement. ‘Autonomy’ and ‘solidarity’ based interactions remain constant
features but their capabilities, public visibility and political support have grown
in parallel with the increased social recognition and legitimation of
squatting.

An additional consequence is that the political
squatting networks have retained a relatively consistent left-libertarian
discourse of ‘solidarity’ in order to add the migrants' struggles to the range
of their concerns. However, it is worth noting that the process of mutual
cooperation was slow over the first decade and a half (1985-2000) and some
structural limitations are still at play, such as the hierarchical relations
that occur when migrants ask native political activists for help.No autonomous organisations have emerged as a
consequence of these interactions. Language
barriers tend to distance migrants from struggles where natives are dominant, as
do the gender relations within some ethnic and immigrant minorities which are
incompatible with the egalitarian views of political squatters.

My research was made possible by the support and
feedback of the Squatting in Europe Kollective (SqEK), my informants, assistants
and fellow activists. Hopefully, this research will shed some light on the
problems faced by European citizens, incoming migrants and urban activists
during the current refugees’ crisis.

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Urban Studies is the leading interdisciplinary journal for critical urban research and issues. Since it was first published in 1964 to provide an international forum for research into the fields of urban and regional studies, the journal has expanded to encompass the increasing range of disciplines and approaches that have been brought to bear on urban and regional issues